


Title Fight

by jiemba



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F, HSAU, High School, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Internalised Homophobia, Supergirl Secret Santa Femslash Exchange, Teenagers, the Sanvers/Girlfight crossover nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 20:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13108074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiemba/pseuds/jiemba
Summary: Teenage Sanvers AU - Both recovering from their own grief and trauma, 15 year olds Alex and Maggie meet at a youth boxing program and help each other heal.





	1. Warm Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MikoNeko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikoNeko/gifts).



> This is a prompt fill for the Supergirl Secret Santa Femslash Exchange for MikoNeko/@kuromikoneko - Merry Christmas, hun! I hope this is something close to what you were after and thanks for letting me write the Sanvers x Girlfight crossover of my dreams : )
> 
> The original prompt was:
> 
> '“I won’t let anyone hurt you, you’re safe with me.” Teenage AU, Alex helping Maggie through her parental rejection after that Valentine's Day from hell and their friendship/relationship going forward.'
> 
> Heads up for some mentions of internalised and outward homophobia, slurs.

It’s torture, having to drag _that_ suitcase across the country.  
  
In truth, she’d never properly unpacked it in the months she’d lived with Tia Yolanda. But somehow this feels impossibly more agonising, locking down the only things she owned – belongings she hadn’t chosen to take with her, when it happened.  
  
Had it been up to her, she would have brought some of her books. Definitely her jersey ( _I doubt they’ll want you to play anymore, Margarita_ , her mother had said when she’d asked for it). The necklace Abuelita gave her at her first communion. The ice cream wrapper from her third grade field trip to Lincoln, the farthest she’d ever been from Blue Springs. Her yearbook from the end of middle school – the one where Eliza had drawn hearts around the photo of their soccer team and promised that they’d always be friends.  
  
That first night at Tia’s, Maggie could see that her father had packed either in a rush, with no care, or both. He hadn’t folded anything, only including purely functional items – a few clothes (too many t-shirts, not enough socks, no bras), a toothbrush, the school books she hadn’t taken that day. Not a single family photo. No memories.   
  
Somehow, as if by some cruel joke, one of Eliza’s shirts had survived the carnage. Papi must have found it on her chair and mistaken it for hers. For two days, it still smelled faintly of popcorn butter and cigarettes when she held it close, crying herself to sleep, not sure if she wanted to burn the thing or keep it forever.  
  
This isn’t how she’d imagined taking her first plane trip. She’d always thought of Eliza going with her to college, or to soccer tryouts, like Jess and Jules in the only non-horror movie she'd ever watched repeatedly in secret. Just a stupid dream of a stupid girl. Eliza was half a country away now, guarded by her community - a blemished victim of Maggie’s perversion, a narrow escapee from a life of sin.  
  
On her last night in Nebraska, Maggie had walked a mile to dump the shirt on the girl’s doorstep. Now, along with the loss of her winter jackets, her suitcase contained even less than when she first arrived, but was markedly more organised. She’d re-packed it neatly, every night at the end of Tia’s couch for the last five months, in case.  
  
It feels ridiculous now, to have repeated the action each night like a prayer - hoping for salvation, for forgiveness, with an intensity approaching the religious. In the departure gate of Dallas/Fort Worth, the loudest room she’s ever stood in, she’s so sickened by her own devotion that she almost wishes she could open up her body and drain every black drop of _him_ , of _them_ , from her veins, scratching the tar from the tunnels of her heart from the inside out.  
  
And yet, all she wants is to hear them.  
  
The ringing on the line is barely audible in the wash of every other sound. It reminds her of last summer, when she and her cousins had walked out to the creek on the far north edge of their farm, and played Marco Polo with their heads underwater even though it was shallow enough to stand.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Eddy?”  
  
“Maggie?”  
  
“Hey,” she says, but the word comes out watery. She feels her throat catch, pain tight behind her eyes. “Are Mami and Papi -”  
  
“They’re not here.”  
  
“Oh,” she breathes, biting her lip before she swallows. “I just…wanted to call and say we got to Texas. We have one more flight to National City before we drive over.”  
  
“You’re not supposed to be calling, Mags. I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”  
  
“I just wanted to let you know. Will you tell them?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.”  
  
“Do it, OK?”  
  
“Yeah, whatever.”  
  
An announcement sounds over the speakers, but it’s not for her. Tia is still sitting at the end of a row of seats, removing her glasses to rub her eyes, trying to stay awake.  
  
“Did you get our new address? We slipped it under -”  
  
“Yeah, we got it.”  
  
The tears are hot in her eyes now, her too-warm fingers sweaty around the phone. “If I don’t get to talk to you soon, happy birthday for next week.”  
  
“Thanks, Mags.”  
  
“I’m gonna miss pushing your face in the cake,” she tries to joke, but the last word falls away into a sob.  
  
“Mags, don’t cry, OK? At least you get to get out of this shithole. You’re lucky.”  
  
For a moment, neither of them says anything. Wiping her face, the confession comes out in a whimper. “ _Te echo de menos_.”  
  
“Mags -”  
  
“ _Quiero volver a casa_.”  
  
He sighs, three states away. “I don’t think you can.”  
  
“Eddy -”  
  
“Don’t call again, OK? You’ll get me in trouble.”  
  
“Tell them I-” she starts to say, but he hangs up before he can hear her cry across the distance.  
  
The conversation repeats in her head as many times as she can remember the words, even as she sits on the second plane she’s caught in her life, gripping the edges of her armrests, watching the city below pull away from her into one gargantuan blackness.  
  
_You’re lucky_ , she tells herself, even as the words feel like a rock in the throat. _You’re lucky. You’re lucky._

 

* * *

 

 

They sky is smaller here.  
  
She can’t see the horizon in any direction, buildings reaching up and over her head so high her neck strains seeking the end of their climb. Rain bleeds down the windows, in what is likely the first real release after a long summer, and even the water seems different here - a cluttered pattering on steel rather than a steady hiss over a field.  
  
“How is it?”  
  
Maggie looks up from her plate, the first Chinese food she’s ever tasted zinging in her mouth – sweet and spicy and bright. She twirls some noodles around with her fork, grateful that her Tia had asked for one rather than making her learn to use chopsticks, today of all days. “It’s good,” she mumbles.  
  
“Different, no?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Yolanda gives her a soft smile, her eyes wrinkling at the edges, absentmindedly twisting her wedding ring around, around, with her thumb. “This will be a good thing, _mija_. For both of us. A fresh start.” She pushes the last of the spring rolls towards Maggie. “The rest are yours.”  
  
“I don’t want any more.”  
  
“You’ve hardly eaten.”  
  
“I said I don’t want it.”  
  
Her Tia concedes in a sigh. “OK. We can take the rest in the car.”  
  
Maggie twirls her noodles in spirals. Never lifts her fork. Watches the people outside run between awnings.  
  
Across from her, Yolanda pinches the bridge of her nose before looking over her niece, the girl still huddled in the corner of the booth in one of her old t-shirts, the fabric overshadowing her small frame. “What I’m trying to say,” she says gently, “is that this won’t be like Nebraska. People are more open-minded. Lots of different types of people live here.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” Maggie mutters through gritted teeth, almost as harsh as a snarl, the bite in her words purely instinctual. “Even _tortillera_ s?”  
  
The glare from her aunt hits hard. “As long as you live with me,” she tells her, voice low and measured, “you will never use that word again. Understood?”  
  
“Why?” Maggie scoffs. “That’s what I am to you, isn’t it? That’s what you think of me.”  
  
“No, _mija_ -”  
  
“That’s why Papi got rid of me. That’s why Mami didn’t even say goodbye, and Eddy doesn’t like me anymore. ”  
  
Under the table, she scratches her fork into her thigh, over her jeans, as hard as she can bear it to go, biting her lip as tears spring to her eyes. In her other hand, her napkin is crushed so tight it’s stiffened into a hard ball.  
  
“ _Mija_ , listen to me,” she hears her Tia murmur, the woman reaching out to cover her hand on the table. “I know I don’t…understand these things. But I will never call you names like this.”  
  
“Everyone else does.”  
  
“Everyone else is gone,” she reminds the young girl before her, looking so much smaller than her years. “We’re here now. In a new place. No one has to know.”  
  
Those last words aren’t an instruction, but Maggie hears them as one anyway.  
  
“I’m trying to learn,” Yolanda continues. “But I’m scared for you. I don’t want to encourage this. I don’t want you to have a hard life.”  
  
The words strike Maggie in the way that a slap can be momentarily painless when there’s no warning. “A hard…” she starts to repeat, but the words fall away in her chest.  
  
“I just want what’s best for you.”  
  
The rain outside settles into a steadier thrum. Maggie rests her head against the window, curling into herself, weeping into her sleeve.  
  
 “I’ve tried to make it go away, Tia,” she whispers. “I don’t know how.”  
  
“I know, _mija_. But if this is really how you are -”  
  
“It’s not.”  
  
“ _Mija_ -”  
  
“ _No es asi_ ,” she insists.  
  
Her aunt looks at her, and she looks away.  
  
They order the rest of the food to go, and the waitress, maybe only a couple of years older than Maggie – eyes like river stones, jet black hair tied daintily in a bun that reveals the sweet slope of her neck, skin tanned and pure and unmarked – drops a few extra fortune cookies by Maggie’s plate with a smile that warms the room and says she hopes she feels better.  
  
Maggie can only thank the table, heat rising in her cheeks at the too-warm feeling singing in her blood.  
  
Because she may not be able to say it out loud, but it’s true, what they say about her. That she’s no good. That she ruins everything she touches. That she’s a sinner, a pervert, some sick freak who can’t make it stop.

 

* * *

 

Almost all the towns on the way have Spanish names.  
  
Their new area in Santa Lucia has taquerias, and two movie theatres, and even more churches. There’s a mall not far from the apartment. A real one, with two levels, and restaurants along the street outside displaying signs in languages she’s never seen.  
  
There are always cars on the road. Real street lights that tell you when to walk.  
  
But the noise is what’s hardest to get used to. Even when they’re unpacking pre-delivered boxes, windows open to let the after-rain air through the apartment, there are always people outside, and sirens every so often, and music from a bar at the very end of the street. No crickets. No trees.  
  
“Don’t lift that one, _mija_ , it’s too heavy.”  
  
“I got it, Tia.”  
  
“But your wrist -”  
  
“I said I got it,” she mutters, but she breathes out her relief when she sets the box down in the kitchen, twirling her left hand in clockwise motions.  
  
Her aunt paces off to put some sheets on Maggie’s bed. “This will be better than the couch, no?”  
  
Maggie can’t bring herself to reply. Tears are stinging sharply in her eyes, a storm’s weight behind them.  
  
“I know it’s small,” her Tia sighs. “But it’s the best I can do, for now.”  
  
“Why did you bring me here?” Maggie weeps, barely above a whisper.  
  
In the corner of her eye, her aunt shoulders sag inward. “ _Ay princesa_ , I know. I know it’s hard, but I’m trying to do what’s best for -”  
  
“What’s _best_ for me?” Her voice breaks over the words, loud enough to fill the room. “How can you say that?”  
  
“Margarita, don’t raise your voice at me in this house.”  
  
“Or what?” she cries, yelling now. “You’ll get rid of me too?”  
  
“ _Mija_ , that’s enough.”  
  
“You took me away from them,” the young girl sobs, her injured hand coming to cover her face as the other braces her weight against the counter, trying to keep her knees from buckling. “Now they’re really never gonna come back for me.”  
  
“ _Ay mija_ …”  
  
“I’m missing Eddy’s birthday.”  
  
“ _Escuchame_ -”  
  
“And you sold Hugo and Dante.”  
  
“I had to.”  
  
“They were gonna change their minds. Papi was gonna come get me. I know he was.”  
  
The sight of the sobbing girl, collapsing forward over the counter, both hands coming to cover her face, twists in Yolanda’s gut. “ _Mija_ ,” she breathes, edging closer. “You weren’t safe. After you got hurt -”  
  
“I told you, _I just fell_. Nothing happened,” she lies, but her muscle memory betrays her, her good hand going to hold her wrist without thinking.  
  
“I know it’s a huge change. But we need a fresh start. Both of us.”  
  
Maggie’s next words come out as a whimper. “I don’t wanna be here.”  
  
“I know,” Yolanda murmurs, coming around the counter to comfort her niece. “I know you miss it. But this is our home now.”  
  
She reaches out a hand, but Maggie jerks away from her. “ _Don’t_ ,” the girl cries, somewhere between a snarl and a sob. “I fucking hate you.”  
  
She pushes past her aunt. Slams her door so hard the walls flinch.

 

* * *

 

In the night, Maggie’s memories make easy meat of her - the way the foxes in Nebraska would play with her chickens, bloody-mouthed, long after they were dead.

The drunken stumble-homers let their voices ring out so far that Maggie’s not sure which way they come from. But the memory of her father’s silence deafens it all - the way he couldn’t even look at her, when he pried her hands off of him and shut off her childhood with one slam of a car door. How that night, on her knees in Tia’s driveway, howling into her hands, threads of his warm winter jacket and crumbs of snow melted painfully together under the fresh cracks in her fingernails. 

  
People get desperate, when they fight to hold onto things.  
  
In her pocket, the forgotten fortune cookies from yesterday have crumbled to dust. She opens the packets and picks the scripts from the carcass of each one, setting them aside in an empty drawer – the first souvenirs of a new life.  
  
This is how Yolanda finds her just before dawn, balled up on an unmade mattress that’s impossible to sleep in after months on a couch, weeping into her sleeve as her head hangs out the window, taking in the new sounds of the first, albeit small, city she’s ever lived in.  
  
“Come on, _mija_ ,” she sighs against the doorframe. “If we’re both awake and miserable, we may as well get out of the house.”

 

 

* * *

 

There’s never been so much blue in one place before.  
  
In the early morning, the sky and the water almost meld together in one stroke of watercolour, a fading wash of indigoes and navies and greys.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Yolanda mutters, hastily dabbing her eyes a little before she steps out of the car. “I just haven’t seen a beach since we were back home.”  
  
Maggie blinks away her own tears, the breeze of her first ocean brushing salt through her hair. “It’s alright, I guess,” she tries to joke half-heartedly, taking in the ‘Swan Beach’ sign at the end of the footpath. “I expected swans.”  
  
Yolanda gives her a wry smile and removes her shoes, prompting Maggie to do the same.  
  
The water is colder than she expected. She watches her Tia’s whole body relax as she breathes in the ocean air, sand coasting over her feet with every wave. “Back home,” the woman says, still looking out over the sea, “I used to stand on the beach like this until my feet sank into the sand. I got way up over my ankle once, but your papi pushed me over and I had to start again.”  
  
Maggie wiggles her toes, the wet crunch between them unfamiliar. “How do you do it?”  
  
“Just stand. It takes a long time.”  
  
Above them, a swarm of gulls rise and lilt over their heads, calling in the morning light.  
  
“Tia?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Do you think I’m like him?”  
  
Yolanda tucks some of her niece’s hair behind her ear, choosing her words. “Yes and no,” she murmurs eventually, just loud enough over the swell of the sea. “You’re tough. But not hard.”  
  
Maggie nods slowly, trying to process the distinction.  
  
“And _mija_ , between you and me,” the woman says as she looks over their feet, grains of sand almost completely covering their toes, “You’re not strong because you’re his daughter. You’re strong because you had him for a father.”  
  
Maggie takes a moment to hear the words, but she thinks she understands.  
  
In the corner of her eye, a dark-haired girl is charging into the water, lifting a surfboard up and over the wall of a wave like it’s nothing at all. Maggie lowers her eyes to the ground.  
  
“They were never gonna come back for me, were they?”  
  
Beside her, her aunt softens, leaning over to kiss her hair. “ _No lo se, mija_.”  
  
Maggie sniffles, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. Ahead of her, the young girl is paddling further than Maggie would ever dream of going. The ocean is so big, so deep, so full of sharks and crabs and eels, but she’s not even scared. Maggie watches her turn on sit on her board and look out over her kingdom, the sunrise lighting the red in her hair, before she turns back to carve along the arm of a wave with surety and grace.  
  
It’s almost as if she’s commanding the ocean to carry her home, and as beautiful and powerful as she appears from afar, Maggie can’t make herself look away this time. Even so, she gets the sense she’s watching a part of this girl she’s not supposed to see, and she doesn’t know why.  
  
“I don’t know how to raise you, _mija_ ,” her Tia confesses then, barely loud enough to carry over the waves. When Maggie looks to her, the sight of her aunt weeping aches deep in her chest.  
  
“Tia, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said -”  
  
“I know. You have every right to be angry.” She smiles gently through her tears, before wiping her eyes and releasing one deep, long breath. “What I’m trying to say is, I may not know what I’m doing, and I may not understand, but I’ll give you everything that I can. I’m just trying to do the right thing, even if I don’t know what that is sometimes.”  
  
Chewing her lip a little, Maggie holds herself as the wind picks up. “I’m sorry. You didn’t ask to look after me.”  
  
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Yolanda insists, firmly but gently. Maggie watches her twist her ring around again, slowing her breathing in time with the waves. “We both needed to be somewhere new, I think. Maybe we can figure out the rest as we go along. Together. OK?”  
  
Maggie nods, tears slipping from her eyes without permission.  
  
They watch the sunrise for a long while, birds circling and diving in broad strokes, the broadening light warming their faces, full of morning.  
  
“It’s going to be a warm winter,” Yolanda says.   
  
The words are a comfort. She hadn’t even thought about that. But a few months from now, as the worst year of her life ends, there won’t be snow. No icicles on the trees. Just the frozen spit of the Pacific, if she can ever bring herself to be brave enough to stand in it.  
  
In the distance, the girl on the surfboard sits and watches the sun, shaking the salt from her hair.  
  
This time, Maggie feels that familiar, shameful warmth in her belly, and drops her eyes to her feet, squashing it down.  
  
The past is a brass knuckled teacher. She won’t lose another home.

 

* * *

 


	2. Feathered Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait on this! Life's been hard on me lately. I'll try to update more regularly from now on, but I hope you enjoy this chapter!

In the worst dreams, she can’t remember what he sounds like. But when she wakes, the memories of him are everywhere, familiar and grating, the way she can never quite get sand out of her bed.

In the early weeks, she’d collapsed at her sister’s feet under the lightning crack of her own wail, finally asking her in hitched wet chokes if people believed in ghosts on Krypton. Kara told her no, that spirits went to live in the stars after, to be closer to Rao - and Alex was left with no explanation for why she felt him everywhere, why she could smell his coffee in the mornings when she first woke up, why she could literally _hear_ him sometimes.

No explanation except that she was losing her mind.

The idea of him being among his favourite constellations is a hollow comfort. He’s not there, but this ghost that lives in her house isn’t anything like him. It’s far too dark, brutally gutting, dulling every star in every night. It smothers her and cradles her in one embrace.

It is a quiet tyrant. A feathered beast.

She throws herself into the water, the early morning cold sucking all the breath from her body. A crack of broken light spills blood between clouds and over her skin as she paddles her board faster, further, until it’s hard to breathe.

She used to think he was here, in this ocean. She had researched how long it would take for a body to decompose in saltwater of this temperature. How far the smaller bones would carry with deep sea currents, how far the larger. She had approximated how much there was left to find, each day another part of him dissolving.

His shoes would take the longest.

She’d hated him - for tainting the one place she came to think, for staining the water with his own blood so she could never swim in it again. But quickly the morning pilgrimages became obsessive. She could hear his voice, sometimes. A “Nice one, champ” between the collapse of two waves. An “Easy, kiddo” when she lost her footing. 

A muscle memory fading too fast from her mind, the way a record gets scratches the more it is played.

She knows better now. He’s not here.

Today, the water tumbles, and the birds roll together in spirals diving for prey, and other surfers call to each other in the lulls, but beneath that, nothing. Her body folds at the waist, her face falling into her hands, a shuddering sob scraping out of her lungs as she keeps herself from crying out for him.

_Dad. Daddy._

The ocean seems to know. It cradles her with an intimate familiarity that she’s known almost as long as she knew him, rocking her as if to soothe a child. When she was small, she would pretend to fall asleep on long car rides, just to feel her father hold her like this. He always carried her to her room, even when he knew she was faking. She doesn’t remember when she got too big for it – only the feeling of loss when he started waking her up.

How she longs for that now – for him to wake her up.

 

* * *

She comes home just as Kara’s body slams into a wall.

“Alex!”

“I’m coming,” she calls, bounding up the stairs and almost slipping over.

“ALEX!”

“Jesus, Kara, what’s wrong?”

In their room, the younger girl is reeling from being wrenched back into her body, her limbs curling inward as she visibly shakes, face red with sweat and tears. “Alex…”

“Hey…” she murmurs, rushing to kneel before her little sister, checking her over. There’s a dent in the wall, a not uncommon side effect of Kara’s nightmares while sleep-floating, but she’s unmarked. Just startled. “Hey, it’s OK. You’re alright.”

“You w-weren’t here.”

“I’m sorry -”

“I woke up and you were gone.”

“Hey-”

“You left me alone.” The girl looks impossibly smaller than her frame, curling tighter into a shaking ball as she hides her face from her sister.

“I was just surfing. Just over there, see? You’re not alone. You’re not up in space. You’re here. You’re OK. Just keep breathing.”

“A-Alex,” she sobs, over and over, breath coming out in thick chokes as Alex tries to hold her.

“Kara, you need to calm down.” She can’t help the edge in her voice – the nerves and frustration. “Please. Mom’s probably sleeping. You have to be quiet, OK?”

Kara immediately stiffens at the words, biting her lip to quiet herself into softer whimpers. She wipes her face with her sleeve. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.”

“The wall… I’ll get you in trouble.”

“It was an accident,” Alex seethes, forcing herself to keep her touch soft, when all she wants is to hit something. She takes a blanket, dabbing the sweat from her sister’s forehead. “Look, let’s get you cleaned up, OK? Come on. Quietly.”

The younger girl nods, eyes downcast, letting Alex lead her to the bathroom. While she’s in the shower, Alex braces herself as she treads through the house, still wet herself, salt crisping in her hair, but the rage doesn’t come.

The only trace of her mother is in the kitchen. An empty bottle of wine and an unfinished plate of dinner in the fridge. Fifty dollars on the table and a note.

_Gone to lab._  
_Kara needs some school things._  
_Will be back late._

Alex scrunches the note tight in her fist before she can cry over it.

This is the sum of their communications, now.

This is the best she can hope for, now.

 

 

* * *

 

  
It’s while she’s cooking pancakes - Kara soothed and clean and cautiously petting Streaky at the kitchen table - that the doorbell rings.

Alex groans. “Who the hell -”

“It’s J’onn!” Kara exclaims, and in a flash she’s already opening the door, scooped up in a hug by a man twice her size, and Alex has to look away.

“How are you, girls?”

“OK. We’re going school shopping today.”

“How about you, Alex?” he presses, a little softer.

She barely looks up from the stove. “Fine. I thought we weren’t training til 4.”

“I heard distress this morning. I came.”

“Kara’s fine. I took care of it.”

“She’s not the only one I heard, Alex.”

She shoots him a quick glare. “I told you to stay out of my head.”

“Sometimes it can’t be helped.”

She rubs her bleary eyes with the back of her hand, swallowing a yawn. “Well sit down, since you’re here.”

“I can cook, Alex,” he murmurs as he approaches her. “You haven’t slept much, you should rest.”

“Yeah well, I have to buy Kara’s things and patch a hole in the wall before my mom notices, so we don’t always get what we want.”

“Alex, I’m sorry -”

“It’s not your fault, Kara.”

J’onn nods slowly, leaving Alex to pace over to Kara, who’s still petting the cat. He reaches a hand out to the creature, smiling slightly at its texture. “Hello, friend.”

“Don’t tell my mom I let him in, she’ll freak,” Alex mutters, scooping some more batter into the pan.

J’onn nods. “We don’t have to train this afternoon, if you’re too tired.”

“I’m fine.”

“Eliza says it’s a good outlet for her anger.”

“God, shut up, Kara.”

“Alex, don’t talk to your sister like that.”

“Don’t talk to me like you’re my dad,” she spits back, tears burning in her eyes, and for a moment it all stops.

J’onn waits for the thoughts in her mind to quiet before he approaches her, sighing as he leans against the fridge. “Alex, I know I can never replace him in any way. And I don’t want to. But I made your father a promise -”

“ _I know_ ,” she interrupts. A tear slips down her cheek, but her hand comes to smear it with a speed that almost rivals Kara’s.

“I’m still trying to find out what I can at the DEO. As soon as I know where his body lies, I will bring him home to you. I promise.”

“You’ve been saying that for months. There’s nothing more to know.” Her whole body shivers. She grasps the edge of the countertop with both hands, closing her eyes. “There’s nothing.”

A strong hand comes to grasp her shoulder, and she lets him pull her close, desperately pushing from her mind the memory of the last man who held her with this kind of care.

“I also lost my father, at Mars’ end,” he murmurs into her hair. “I know.”

She sniffles into his shirt. “Does it go away?”

“It eases.”

It occurs to Alex then, that all three of them are fatherless - how grief had spared none of them, swiping at family trees and breaking branches. She uncurls herself from J’onn’s body, wiping her face as she turns to Kara. 

“I’ll call Mr and Mrs Li to see if you can hang out with Kenny while we’re training.”

“I want J’onn to teach me to box too,” Kara grumbles in exasperation.

Alex scoffs. “You’d kill someone.”

J’onn shoots her a look.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she relents, swallowing guilt at the sight of her sister timidly withdrawing her hands from the cat. “Just…you know what Dad said. Showing yourself just puts you at risk. Us too.”

_And you already lost me my Dad._

“ _Alex_ ,” J’onn warns her, clearly having heard. “Go lie down for a moment. I’ll finish breakfast and drive you both to get what you need before training.”

She doesn’t bother replying – just pushes past him to curl into a ball on the couch, digging into her pocket for her mp3 player and blasting Offspring’s ‘Gone Away’ as loud as she can bear it. Loud enough for J’onn to hear it in his own mind, to sense how he makes her feel pain and need all at once.

 

* * *

 

Of all the things on Maggie’s to-do list before school starts, finding a job ranks towards the top.

It’s crucial that she makes as little a dent in her Tia’s life as possible – that she shrinks herself to the point of being barely there, lest she be too outspoken, too daring, too young ever again.

Back home, she’d babysit for the neighbours’ kids and feed their chickens before school - until it happened. Later, the best she could do was stack boxes on weekends at her Tia’s work, just cash in hand - until the other thing happened.

At least here, no one knows. There are more than a handful of stores. And a lot of people look like her, more than she’s ever seen. The mall near the apartment has a movie theatre, and a food court, and two whole floors of stores, and it takes hours to go door to door. She tells the bookstore about how she helped at her Aunt’s job. Tells the pet store about Hugo and Dante. Tells the taqueria that her Abuelitas had her helping in the family Cinco de Mayo feasts since she was five.

She tells them all she’ll do any job. That she’s a good girl, who speaks good Spanish (not the best Spanish), and doesn’t mind how early she has to wake up or how dirty her hands get, and just wants the chance to make a few dollars to help her family.

She tells none of them about her injury.

By mid-afternoon, the new phone number scrawled on the inside of her arm has blurred into a vague smudge, but her hand remembers how to write it on forms without thinking. There’s only one place to go after that, a note from her Tia guiding her down a track of back alleys and over a bridge to a warehouse devoid of any colour, save for a weather-worn sign across the front wall declaring it a fighters’ gym, sun flaring on the road under her feet.

It’s ten degrees hotter inside – so many men swinging and jumping rope and grunting that the gym itself feels like a breathing thing, a Public Enemy soundtrack seated under a constant pattering of thuds and clangs and sounds that would be groans of pain if they weren’t quite so breathless.

It’s a dodge between bodies to get to the back office, but she immediately understands why he’s tucked away in there, cocooned from the disciplined chaos outside. “Can I help you?” he asks her as he picks videos from a bookcase, voice raspy like it’s spent years shouting over noise like this.

“I…” she starts, before she knows what to say. “My aunt called, she said you had a youth program? She told me to stop by.”

He peers at her over his glasses. “Margarita, right?”

It’s the first time a stranger’s ever pronounced her name correctly, but she still shakes her head. “Just Maggie.”

“Hector. Would’ve noticed you in here before. We don’t get a lot of girls.” He squints at a tape, rubbing his eyes before he hands it to her. “What year does that say?”

“1985.”

“Damn it,” he grumbles, setting it aside. “You box, Maggie?”

“I can fight.”

“Not what I asked.”

Maggie digs her hands into the pockets of her shorts, eyes finding the floor.

“We have strict rules here,” Hector tells her. “Fighting stays in the gym. I don’t want to hear about you smacking some poor kid in math class.”

“It’s not like that,” Maggie insists. “I don’t do that stuff, it’s just…”

“Just what?” he mutters, voice clipped.

She tries to steady herself as she looks him over, something about the shape of his eyes reminding him of a Tio back home. “I just moved here from Nebraska,” she admits. “The kids there…they didn’t like me. And… I dunno, Tia thinks this’ll be good for me, I guess. ”

The unsaid things hang suspended, but he nods like he doesn’t need to hear them.

“We have classes through the week, and youth-only open training is on Tuesdays and Thursdays 4-7. Any other time you need to drop in to lose your cool, do your homework, whatever, you just drop in. Nobody’ll bother you.”

“I…” she starts, trying to let the too warm air settle in her chest, the heat filtering into her cheeks anyway. “ _Lo siento, no tengo mucho dinero_.”

“That’s fine, _mija_.”

“I can work for you if you need. I can clean the gym for you, or help you sort through your office, or -”

“ _No hay necesidad_. You just focus on school. And our youth classes are sliding scale.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just pay what you can. If it’s a dollar, it’s a dollar. Just show up. I’d rather you kids be here than off doing drugs someplace. I just need your parents to sign these before you start,” he explains, handing her a waiver.

She baulks a little. “ _Vivo con mi Tia. Eso esta bien_?”

He gives her a sad smile, his eyes wrinkling around the edges. “No problem.”

Maggie exhales slowly, unable to lift her eyes to his as she accepts the paper, her father’s pride still etched in her bones.

He takes off his glasses, looks her over. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“You look younger.”

She squirms a little. “Just small, I guess.”

He looks past her shoulder, letting out a whistle too loud for the room. “Hey, Hank!”

Behind her, Maggie sees a man tilt his head but not his body, eyes fixed on a fight between two boys  of about 17. She’s never seen someone command so much space by doing nothing at all, arms crossed tight over his chest, standing tall like a tree that doesn’t bend. “Yeah?”

“Your girl’s 15, right?”

That has his attention, and as soon as his eyes find Maggie, he’s coming her way. “You here to train?”

“Yeah,” she replies. “You have other girls here?”

“Your age? Just the one.” He extends a hand, and it engulfs hers. “Hank Henshaw.”

“Maggie Rodas.”

It’s hard to tell what to make of his smile – tight, but warm, strictly polite but reserved like he’s trying to figure her out. “I’ve been training Alex for a couple months, but all the boys here are too big or young for her to spar with. She could use a partner, if you’re up for it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Maggie lets out, and it’s all moving faster than she expected, but in the corner of her eye, there’s a flash of reddish-brown hair coming from the water station. A girl in running shorts and a tank top, a little tall for her age, is setting her bottle on a windowsill, shaking herself out in front of a mirror before lifting her fists to fight herself, shadowboxing with the flow of someone who breathes like water, and instantly, Maggie knows she’s seen her before.

She looks different on land. Harder. Tired, but pushing, like she’s running from her own shadow, scrambling to exorcise something from under her own skin, and again Maggie feels the sensation that she’s not supposed to be watching her,  yet the grace of her movement is hard to pull away from.

“Danvers,” Hank calls out, and the girl’s tugged from her battle, her pale skin gently flushed as she jogs over. “This is Maggie Rodas. She’s joining the gym.”

“I’m down to train with you, if you want,” Maggie tells her. “Hank said you need a partner.”

The girl nods, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. “Yeah. I’m hoping to start sparring in local club comps by in the next couple months. How long have you been boxing?”

“Well, technically I’ve never _boxed_ …”

“Great,” the girl mutters, not trying to hide that she’s unimpressed, and Maggie feels a competitive edge twist in her gut.

“But I can fight.”

“Oh can you?” she scoffs, raising her eyebrows.

Maggie tilts her head, smirking a little. “Life experience.”

It seems like Alex doesn’t know how to take that. Maggie watches her glance at Hank, who nods almost imperceptibly. The girl’s shoulders lose some of their tension.

“Look, I grew up watching matches on TV with my dad,” Maggie continues. “I know what makes a good fighter. It’s just that my parents wouldn’t let me learn, so I never got taught.”

“What, and they just changed their minds?”

_They changed their minds about a lot of things_ , she thinks to herself, swallowing hard, and beside her Hank shifts slightly on his feet.

“Something like that,” she says.

Hank tilts his head to face Alex. “I know she’s a little small for you -”

“A little,” the girl teases lightly, making Maggie scoff and shake her head.

“But if you plan to keep up your training diet it may not matter so much.”

“Hey, I don’t mind putting on a little weight,” Maggie teases back, a smirk tugging at her lips. “I’m new in town, Danvers – know any good burger places?”

The glare the girl shoots her is hard as a punch, and Maggie almost laughs out loud.

“The point is,” Hank interrupts, “Alex, this would be good for your training. It’s about time you fought someone closer to who you’ll be up against.”

Almost mirroring Hank’s posture, the girl stands and breathes for a moment before lifting her eyes to Maggie’s. “I prefer to train alone. And hard. Think you can keep up?”

“Played soccer for six years. Bet I could beat you in shuttle runs.”

The corner of Alex’s mouth cocks up a little. “That a challenge?”

“Scared you’ll lose, Danvers?” Maggie quips, already walking past her to the doors.

 

 

* * *

 

They pound the alley pavement like they want to see it bleed. Alex’s legs are longer, but she’s pushing harder than she’s had to in a while, running back and forth between dumpsters until her heart pumps acid, stomach clenched tight as a fist. She’ll give it to her – this girl is fast – and when Alex sees her flick her head back, dimples flashing as she smiles, she knows the game is up.

“Fine,” she pants, slowing to a jog.

“What was that?” the girl coaxes, a breathless laugh escaping her as she steadies.

“We can train together.”

“Knew you’d come around, Danvers.”

Alex watches her tie up her hair in one swift movement, wiping the light sheen of sweat shining over her throat. The sun suddenly seems excessively hot. The girl seems to notice the gaze, her flick of a glance sending a gentle flush over Alex’s skin with an expression that is half question, half answer.

“Thursday?”

Alex swallows, nods. “Thursday.”

The girl smiles at the ground and shakes her head a little, and Alex instantly gets the sense that she never had a chance.

“I should get back to Hank.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll see you,” she mutters, lifting a hand to shield her face from the sun as she heads back in.

“Oh Danvers?”

“Yeah?”

“That running got me all sweaty. Think I might go get some ice cream.”

“Yeah you do that, Rodas.”

“Or maybe a milkshake…”

“Asshole.”

The girl lets out a full laugh, still watching Alex as she begins to walk backwards down the alley before she turns away. “See you round, Danvers.”

Alex watches her jog all the way to the corner and disappear, but she doesn’t know why. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated. And yes, Hector is a Girlfight reference : )
> 
> Spanish translations (apologies for any mistakes):
> 
> Lo siento, no tengo mucho dinero - I'm sorry, I don't have much money  
> No hay necesidad - There's no need  
> Vivo con mi Tia. Eso esta bien? - I live with my aunt. Is that OK?

**Author's Note:**

> Spanish translations (please let me know of any mistakes):
> 
> Te echo de menos = I miss you  
> Quiero volver a casa = I want to come home  
> Tortillera = dyke  
> No es asi = It's not like that  
> Escuchame = Listen to me  
> No lo se = I don't know
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks everyone for reading! This will be a multi-chap, so stay tuned. Come find me on tumblr @jiemba if you want to say hello


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